Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Ford & Toyota In Talks

Ford, Toyota chiefs held talks in Tokyo -report
Tue Dec 26, 2006 3:51 PM ET, Reuters

The chief executive of Ford Motor Co. met with the chairman of Toyota Motor Corp.<7203.t> as the first step in potential partnership negotiations, the Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said on Tuesday.
The newspaper reported in its online edition that Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Toyota's Chairman Fujio Cho met last week. The meeting was also attended by Ford Executive Vice President Mark Fields, who is in charge of restructuring the automaker's loss-making North American operations, the newspaper said.
The newspaper cited unnamed sources familiar with the talks as saying that Ford was interested in Toyota's hybrid and fuel-cell technologies as well as its work in reducing manufacturing and parts procurement costs.
A spokesman for Ford said the automaker would neither confirm nor deny the report...read more: here